Sustainable travel at BecaBeca

Beca won the 2015 supreme Commute (Travelwise Choices) Award for their 'cut the carbon' campaign. Their initiative has proven that a consistent message combined with commitment from management and staff is the perfect recipe for success.

Creating a sustainable travel campaign

In October 2015, Beca formed "green teams" that came together across the company's regional offices to put together a campaign for sustainable travel. Their mission: to reduce Beca’s environmental footprint from travel.

The company had already held a travel survey across its regional offices that identified how people commute to work and allowed them to target specific promotions.

The company targeted 3 sustainable travel areas: active transport, public transport, and carpooling (ride-sharing), and came up with catchy slogans for each theme: ‘walk ride and roll’, ‘avoid the fuss take the bus’, and ‘share the load’.

The teams then put up posters around the offices displaying facts about sustainable travel, results of the survey, and promoting upcoming events. Weekly updates were put up on their internal intranet site and also on their media page to get some discussion going.

Organised events

The green teams then organised regional carpooling events and put up large printed maps of the cities and surrounding suburbs, encouraging staff to place a sticker on their suburb. This was a great way for staff to visualise the areas they travel from.

A shared lunch was organised and interested carpoolers wore name tags with their suburbs on them and ‘matched up’ with others from the same suburb so they could organise carpooling. They created carpooling agreements to ensure ‘ride rules’ were set from the start.

Regional events were also organised around Walk and Bike to Work Day. The company provided free breakfast for those taking an active mode of transport during the week, which proved a great way to celebrate those making the effort.

The company calculated the total distance travelled and how much carbon was saved compared to driving. The breakfasts also gave newly-established regional active reps the chance to introduce themselves.

Other events during October included Auckland Council bringing their electric cars during lunchtime to allow staff to try them out and a visit from the mobile app Chariot, who presented on their plans for enabling ride-sharing in New Zealand. Finally, a panel discussion event called ‘Transport Back to the Future’ brought together speakers from the Ministry of Transport, Chariot, and Uber. All staff and several clients were invited to attend.

“This thought-provoking event reinforced the way transport is evolving and what we might expect to see in the future,” said Beca's Genevieve Smith.

About Beca

Beca is New Zealand's largest professional services consultancy. The company has more than 2,000 staff spread across its offices in Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin, Hamilton, Tauranga, Nelson, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, and Queenstown.